


follow the yellow brick road

by corneredrats



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Therapy, by slow burn i REALLY mean slow burn, hermann plays therapist, idk if hermann is marshal now but he is here, newt is fucked up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 18:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14087196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corneredrats/pseuds/corneredrats
Summary: Marshal Gottlieb has a nice ring to it, but with the title, also shores up multitudes of responsibilities. With impending doom currently shelved, Hermann has to spearhead the process up picking up broken parts of the world before they get shattered again.To him, this includes Newton Geiszler.





	follow the yellow brick road

**Author's Note:**

> COINING THE PLOT BEFORE ANYONE ELSE WRITES THIS WHOOP
> 
> So I absolutely hate the second movie, but I can't deny the opportunities that it opens up, so I'm taking that negativity and turning it around. If only my mother knew.

There are a few notable perks to being Marshal.

One: suddenly your voice gains an underlying boom to it, and eventhough Hermann didn't notice it earlier, he did, however, notice how people react differently to what he has to say compared to before he'd risen to the position.

Two: You control your schedule, and to an extent, your workers' schedules. Hermann is a staunch believer in rising early, but over time, he has developed a somewhat comprehensible understanding of how other people might just not like waking up at five a.m, clockwork, every other Saturday. He thinks it's because of the time he'd spent working with Newton Geiszler.

_Newton Geiszler._

Which brings him to his next point. Three: his word is law. Sure, there is a general council that has to be consulted in order to approve more bigshot decisions and a whole court of law to consider, but internal problems can all be solved by him opening his mouth and saying the bare minimum. This is very useful, especially considering how damn stubborn Nate Lambert could be.

Tearing him away from his beloved 'we're-totally-platonic-I-swear' totally _not_ platonic friends Jake Pentecost and Jules Reyes on a perfectly tranquil Friday afternoon is bad enough, but then telling him that the reasoning behind it is to visit one of the most dangerous criminals currently being held in a maximum security chamber is enough to slightly dumb down the blindingly optimistic (and obviously fake) expression on the Ranger.

As they travel through various key-card only accessible doors in relative silence, Marshal Hermann Gottlieb contemplates on whether trying to talk to his now deranged former colleague to try and help him gain just a slither of his old self is actually a good idea. Hermann was never quite the therapist type, and even post-Pitfall, he still treated his co-worker stiffly, and they didn't immediately get along fabulously; it was a step-by-step process, and miraculously, they learned how to work through it.

Hermann just hopes that they can work through it now.

Nate seems to take heed of this inner dilemma. "We already have others talking to him," he says, "and you're already hard at work trying to- er, coming up with blueprints to cha- help him." They stop walking. One more door, then the final one, and then there will be one Newton Geiszler, unstable, incoherent, and strapped to a chair.

Nate looks up at the taller man. "You don't have to do this."

"I do not," Hermann shrugs. "But I suppose I feel-"

"Obligated to?" Nate supplies, not quite gathering the fact that he has just interrupted a superior. Hermann reminds himself that other people are also adjusting to his new position as much as he himself is, and nods slightly.

"A way to put it."

Nate inclines his head, something akin to understanding appearing as a twinkle in his eyes. How could he _not_ understand? He might not have a complete document recording Hermann's thorough background with Newton Geiszler, but he knows enough to put together that they had went through a lot with each other. As much as it's Nate's concern, they're already at the 'drift partner' stage -- and they did actually drift once.

And Nate would be damned if he says that he wouldn't do the same for his drift partner.

"Well, alright, Marshal," they pass through the second-to-last set of doors, and pause again. Nate hands the final keycard to Hermann, who gradually accepts it, doubt visibly dwindling from the latter's expression.

"Thank you, Ranger Lambert."

"No problem, Marshal," Nate replies, but he doesn't leave immediately. "Are you sure that you don't want my guys posted in front?"

Hermann doesn't reply.

"Marshal," Nate repeats steadily, with an added edge to his voice. "That man in there... that's not _our_ Newt."

"It is," Hermann responds promptly, with added ferocity to his voice. Realizing that Nate subtly stumbles back as a reaction to the sudden aggressiveness, the older man tones down his volume immediately as he says, "Newt is just... in there, somewhere."

Nate dares not to reply, but his gaze is quizzical.

Hermann settles on saying, "if the git in there can be saved, there is worth in saving him. I may have loathed Newt, but I daresay that even the _cruelest_ of people would not stand by as their friend's identity is slowly wrestled away from them. By a tyrannical inter-dimensional race of deformed colonizers, no less."

"I..." Nate sputters, before subsequently clamping his mouth after he realizes that he has nothing to argue over. Instead, he simply bobs his head. "At least let me post one guy."

"With the worst aim in the whole establishment, if you will."

Nate affords Gottlieb a smile. "For you? The worst aim in the whole world."

Lambert salutes Hermann, standard protocol, and dismisses himself. Waiting in place, the new Marshal hears the gushing air sound signifying the sliding doors leading away being shut closed.

Drawing in a hefty sigh, Hermann suddenly finds it immensely difficult to lift his hand up to swipe the keycard.

Can he bear to see Newt's face, after all that he's done?

Is the person behind these doors Newt at all?

Hermann huffs. Prepping yourself to converse with your former co-worker and on-and-off friend (your only friend, really) turned universal criminal who has had his head brainwashed by aliens should _not_ be this hard.

"I can hear y'all, you know," a familiar voice booms from inside the doors, voice reverberating from the metal doors. A voice that Hermann has been so acquainted to that the first thing he thinks of when he hears it is the smell of Kaiju organs that Geiszler _loved so much_ , and the sound of him fumbling around the lab, dragging about intestines, and muttering to himself incessantly until Gottlieb would tell him to _shut up_. A voice Hermann knows so well that he suddenly forgets the crimes that Newt had committed, and instead remembers when Newt was just a fun-loving rockstar wannabe with a horrible voice and equally dismal music tastes.

Before Pitfall. Before Shao. Before the money. Before Newton suddenly abandoned Hermann to pursue a dream that he didn't even dream-

Before he went batshit crazy and tried to trigger the Armageddon.

Hermann can feel the air being knocked out of his lungs.

"It's all pretty touching, I gotta say. Now, if you would kindly open the goddamned doors? If I spend another day in complete silence, I swear, I'll go insane."

 _That_.

That does not make it any easier.

Gathering his breath rigidly and piling it down his throat, Hermann musters enough sense to swipe the damn keycard.

The sliding door pulls apart.

Gottlieb painfully stifles any reaction.

Newt grins.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> uck my grammar has gone to shit whoops
> 
> so apparently this aint the first of its plot but that's okay because my fic now has plot buddies :)


End file.
